This story only took me fifteen minutes to write. That may or may not be a good thing but at least I’m honest. Enjoy.
“Here,” Joe said as he dropped a plate on the table. “Eat this and consider yourself lucky that I even thought of you.”
Looking down at the plate, Rob suppressed a grimace. He hated spaghetti squash. “Should have just let me starve,” he mumbled as Joe walked back toward the kitchen.
Joe stopped in his tracks, shoulders up and head down as if he’d just been struck. “What did you say?”
“I said you should have just let me starve. I hate squash.”
Joe turned and raised a steak knife, using it to point at Rob. “I take you in, clothe you, put food in your stomach and this is how you treat me? Like some kind of here when you need me, gone when you don’t-?”
Rob stared into Joe’s eyes, daring to assert his dominance. “That’s exactly what you are. Don’t ever forget it.”
“How can you say that? The times we’ve had, our friendship.”
“No more. I won’t do this anymore. The people on that train were innocent and you killed them without giving a thought to mercy.” Rob stood up and advanced on Joe, who shrank back from the other man’s imposing figure. “Go away and never come back.”
Recognizing the words that came from Rob’s mouth, Joe laughed derisively. “Gollum? That’s who inspires you? Some stinky, underground-dwelling, imaginary midget?”
Rob hadn’t expected Joe to react this way; he’d thought it would be much easier to get him to leave. He hesitated and in that moment, Joe countered.
“No, Rob. I’m not leaving. I think it’s time for you to go. I have work to do.”
“No, I won’t let you kick me out of my own house-!”
“Your house? Your house? I built this place, I made us who we are. You’re a weak, pathetic fool and you always will be. If it wasn’t for me, you’d be nothing. Just a nobody, pumping gas at six-fifty an hour. No, you’re nothing without me. And as much as you want to deny it, I am in charge.”
Rob clapped his hands over his ears to shut out the sounds. The taunting sound of Joe’s voice; the catcalls hurled by all the rich kids at school who had laughed at his tattered clothes; the pretty girl who had laughed when he asked her out and then had told all of her friends that she didn’t even know his name; the sound of fists hitting flesh as her boyfriend, a member of the wrestling team, had beat up Rob after school. He had gotten back at them all, eventually. And even though he didn’t want to, it was time for more payback. To silence more noise, more voices that called out in derision.
When Rob put his hands to his ears, Joe turned his back on him. This was always the hardest part, getting Rob on board. They had been killing together for seven years and still, every time, Rob resisted. But that was okay, Joe thought as he placed his knife in the sink, he would come around. Rob always came around.
Joe gave his partner a few more seconds to compose himself and turned around. As he expected, Rob was gone. He was with the program and that was good. That was real good cause tonight, he would go to work. There was a cashier at the grocery store that had rolled her eyes when Joe paid for the squash with pennies. Tonight he would teach her some respect.
The last little corner of his mind that was still sane was now fully suppressed and no longer a hindrance. Joseph Robert Stevens smiled, nodded his head and returned to the table to eat his squash. He hated it but it was all he had, for now.
